When are conceptual innovations empowering? The case of incels

Abstract We admit concepts like ‘sexual harassment’ into our collective hermeneutical pool, yet hesitate to do the same with the incel notion of ‘blackpill’ or ‘monkeybranching.’ Why this disparity? Incels present themselves as marginalized, and their own efforts to create new conceptual tools as legitimate responses to such marginalization. At face value, such a standpoint aligns with anti-oppression epistemologies, according to which we should take conceptual contributions from marginalized groups seriously. This raises the question whether the ‘incel standpoint’ warrants consideration, and whether our reluctance to do so is driven by an a priori moral condemnation of their political agenda. One response is to simply reject that incels are meaningfully marginalized. This paper takes a different approach. We accept that incels suffer marginalization in some important respects, yet suggest that it is nevertheless possible to distinguish, in a non-arbitrary way, genuine attempts to overcome what Miranda Fricker calls hermeneutical injustice from conceptual innovations which merely reinforce dominant ideologies, or even constitute forms of self-deception. Thus, it is possible to accept the marginalization of incels yet have good reasons to be sceptical about their conceptual and interpretive innovations. We do so, first, by putting forward a novel understanding of what hermeneutical empowerment consists in; second, by offering three criteria to assess conceptual engineering efforts. The two proposals, combined, enable a more robust (i.e. less arbitrary and less moralized) way to assess conceptual innovations. This approach can, in principle, apply to cases beyond that of incels.